The present invention generally relates to radiocommunication systems and more particularly relates to a system and method for reliably transmitting radiocommunication signals under non-ideal conditions. Referring to FIG. 1, a typical cellular mobile radiocommunication system is shown. The typical system includes a number of base stations similar to base station 110 and a number of mobile units or stations similar to mobile 120.
Voice and/or data communication can be performed using these devices or their equivalents.
The base station includes a control and processing unit 130 which is connected to the MSC (mobile switching center) 140 which in turn is connected to the public switched telephone network (not shown).
The base station 110 serves a cell and includes a plurality of voice channels handled by voice channel transceiver 150 which is controlled by the control and processing unit 130. Also, each base station includes a control channel transceiver 160 which may be capable of handling more than one control channel. The control channel transceiver 160 is controlled by the control and processing unit 130. The control channel transceiver 160 broadcasts control information over the control channel of the base station or cell to mobiles locked to that control channel. The voice channel transceiver broadcasts the traffic or voice channels which can include digital control channel location information.
When the mobile 120 first enters an idle mode, it periodically scans the control channels of base stations like base station 110 for the presence of a paging burst addressed to the mobile 120. The paging burst informs mobile 120 which cell to lock on or camp to. The mobile 120 receives the absolute and relative information broadcast on a control channel at its voice and control channel transceiver 170. Then, the processing unit 180 evaluates the received control channel information which includes the characteristics of the candidate cells and determines which cell the mobile should lock to. The received control channel information not only includes absolute information concerning the cell with which it is associated, but also contains relative information concerning other cells proximate to the cell with which the control channel is associated. These adjacent cells are periodically scanned while monitoring the primary control channel to determine if there is a more suitable candidate. Additional information relating to specifics of mobile and base station implementations can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,523 entitled xe2x80x9cMulti-Mode Signal Processing.xe2x80x9d It will be appreciated that the base station may be replaced by one or more satellites in a satellite-based mobile radiocommunication system.
To increase radiocommunication system capacity, digital communication and multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) may be used. The objective of each of these multiple access techniques is to combine signals from different sources onto a common transmission medium in such a way that, at their destinations, the different channels can be separated without mutual interference. In a FDMA system, users share the radio spectrum in the frequency domain. Each user is allocated a part of the frequency band which is used throughout a conversation. In a TDMA system, users share the radio spectrum in the time domain. Each radio channel or carrier frequency is divided into a series of time slots, and individual users are allocated a time slot during which the user has access to the entire frequency band allocated for the system (wideband TDMA) or only a part of the band (narrowband TDMA). Each time slot contains a xe2x80x9cburstxe2x80x9d of information from a data source, e.g., a digitally encoded portion of a voice conversation. The time slots are grouped into successive TDMA frames having a predetermined duration. The number of time slots in each TDMA frame is related to the number of different users that can simultaneously share the radio channel. If each slot in a TDMA frame is assigned to a different user, the duration of a TDMA frame is the minimum amount of time between successive time slots assigned to the same user. In a CDMA system, each user is assigned a unique pseudorandom user code with which the user""s information signal is modulated to distinguish it from other user""s signals.
In a TDMA system, the successive time slots assigned to the same user, which are usually not consecutive time slots on the radio carrier, constitute the user""s digital traffic channel, which is considered to be a logical channel assigned to the user. The organization of TDMA channels, using the GSM standard as an example, is shown in FIG. 2. The TDMA channels include traffic channels TCH and signaling channels SC. The TCH channels include full-rate and half-rate channels for transmitting voice and/or data signals. The signaling channels SC transfer signaling information between the mobile unit and the satellite (or base station). The signaling channels SC include three types of control channels: broadcast control channel (BCCHs), common control channels (CCCHs) shared between multiple subscribers, and dedicated control channels (DCCHs) assigned to a single subscriber. A BCCH typically includes a frequency correction channel (FCH) and a synchronization channel (SCH), both of which are downlink channels. The common control channels (CCCHs) include downlink paging (PCH) and access grant (AGCH) channels, as well as the uplink random access channel (RACH). The dedicated control channels DCCH include a fast associated control channel (FACCH), a slow associated control channel (SACCH), and a standalone dedicated control channel (SDCCH). The slow associated control channel is assigned to a traffic (voice or data) channel or to a standalone dedicated control channel (SDCCH). The SACCH channel provides power and frame adjustment and control information to the mobile unit. The random access channel RACH is used by the mobiles to request access to the system. The RACH logical channel is a unidirectional uplink channel (from the mobile to the base station or satellite), and is shared by separate mobile units (one RACH per cell is sufficient in typical systems, even during periods of heavy use). Mobile units continuously monitor the status of the RACH channel to determine if the channel is busy or idle. If the RACH channel is idle, a mobile unit desiring access sends its mobile identification number, along with the desired telephone number, on the RACH to the base station or satellite. The MSC receives this information from the base station or satellite and assigns an idle voice channel to the mobile station, and transmits the channel identification to the mobile through the base station or satellite so that the mobile station can tune itself to the new channel. All time slots on the RACH uplink channel are used for mobile access requests, either on a contention basis or on a reserved basis. Reserved-basis access is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,420,864, entitled xe2x80x9cMethod of Effecting Random Access in a Mobile Radio System.xe2x80x9d
Transmission of signals in a TDMA system occurs in a buffer-and-burst, or discontinuous-transmission, mode: each mobile unit transmits or receives only during its assigned time slots in the TDMA frames on the mobile unit""s assigned frequency. At full rate, for example, a mobile station might transmit during slot 1, receive during slot 2, idle during slot 3, transmit during slot 4, receive during slot 5, and idle during slot 6, and then repeat the cycle during succeeding TDMA frames. The transceiver of the mobile unit can be switched off (or xe2x80x9csleepxe2x80x9d) to save power during the time slots when it is neither transmitting nor receiving.
To increase mobility and portability, radiocommunication subscribers tend to prefer mobile units having a relatively small, omnidirectional (and accordingly, less powerful) antennas over mobile units having a large or directional antenna. Because of this preference, it is sometimes difficult to provide sufficient signal strength for the exchange of communication signals between typical mobile units having a small, omnidirectional antenna and a mobile switching center (MSC) or satellite. This problem is particularly serious in satellite-based mobile radiocommunications. A satellite-based mobile radiocommunication system provides radiocommunication services to particular geographical areas of the earth using one or more partially overlapping satellite beams. Each satellite beam has a radius of up to about 1000 km. Due to the power limitations of a satellite, it is not practical to provide a high link margin in every beam simultaneously. Because mobile satellite links are severely power limited, communication is typically limited to line-of-sight channels with Rician fading. Rician fading occurs from a combination of a strong line-of-sight path and a ground-reflected wave, along with weak building-reflected waves.
Rician channels require a communications link margin of approximately 8 dB or so to achieve voice communication in ideal or near-ideal conditions, such as when the mobile radiotelephone unit antenna is properly deployed and the unit is in an unobstructed location. The term xe2x80x9clink marginxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9csignal marginxe2x80x9d refers to the additional power required to offer adequate service over and above the power required under ideal conditions, that is, a channel having no impairments other than additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). xe2x80x9cImpairmentsxe2x80x9d may include fading of signal amplitude, Doppler shifts, phase variations, signal shadowing or blockage, implementation losses, and anomalies in the antenna radiation pattern. Whether transmitting voice or data, it is frequently desirable to increase the signal margin to ensure reliable radiocommunication performance, particularly in power-limited satellite applications.
In these near-ideal channels, the mobile unit can successfully monitor the paging channel to detect incoming calls. In non-ideal conditions, such as when the mobile unit antenna is not deployed or the mobile unit is in an obstructed location (e.g., inside a building) reflected waves, including ground-reflected and building-reflected waves, become dominant. The channels in these non-ideal conditions are characterized by flat Rayleigh fading (the most severe type of fading) with severe attenuation. In such channels, a link margin of as much as 30 dB or more is required to achieve voice communication, and the mobile unit may have difficulty monitoring the paging channel to detect incoming calls. In these non-ideal conditions where voice communication is made difficult, it is desirable to employ a short message service (SMS) is desirable to communicate information to the user. Due to the power limitations of the satellite, SMS is particularly effective when used in non-ideal conditions to alert a mobile station user of an incoming call. The mobile station user may then change locations to receive or return the call.
Known methods of increasing the link margin of a signal require increased transmit power levels or substantial transmission delay, or both. Such requirements are highly undesirable.
Accordingly, it would be desirable for a radiocommunication system to allow for transmission of signals at an increased signal margin with a reduced significant delay but without a significant increase in power.
It would also be desirable for a TDMA communication system to allow for transmission of signals with an increased signal margin without requiring a change in the structure or organization of TDMA frames.
It would be further desirable for a mobile radiocommunication system to allow for transmission of data messages originating from either a mobile unit or from a satellite or base station with an increased signal margin.
It would be further desirable for a communication system to selectively increase the signal margin of a communication link for the transmission of data messages.
The above-noted and other limitations of conventional communication systems and methods are overcome by the present invention, which provides for a high-penetration transmission method in which an alphanumeric message is encoded using a compact character set, and in which the signal margin is increased by a combination of bit repetition and a relatively small increase in power. According to exemplary embodiments, the combination of bit repetition and a relatively small increase in power with encoding via a compact character set as described herein avoids the unacceptable delays characteristic of systems which rely solely on repetition to increase the signal margin, as less bits are required to encode a message. Likewise, the combination of repetition and a relatively small increase in power with the compact character set of the present invention avoids the co-channel interference problems of systems which rely solely on a power increase to increase the signal margin as less power increase is required to obtain the same increase in signal margin for a given delay time.
According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a mobile radiocommunication system is provided with a short message service feature for transmitting alphanumeric messages to and from a mobile unit. In order to ensure reliable transmission over channels having severe attenuation, the communication system, a short message is encoded using a novel compact character set. The message may be further encoded with error detection or correction coding; the message is divided into packets or groups of one or more bits each; each packet is transmitted, at a power level greater than the power level for voice transmission, multiple times over a TDMA communication channel, using the same time slot or slots for each transmission; and the transmissions are integrated and checked for errors at the receiver to form a signal having an increased margin.